http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/113000/numbers.sml For Some, Intercepting Spy Transmissions Is Just a Hobby By Michael Della Bitta FOXNews.com Spending nights intercepting spy agencies' secret transmissions may sound like an exciting career. But for shortwave enthusiast Chris Smolinski, it's just a hobby. Smolinski and others tune in to numbers stations broadcasts — instructions for deployed secret agents encoded into a sequence of numbers and read aloud on shortwave radio. Listening to a long string of numbers read over the radio may sound like dullsville, but Smolinski disagrees. "They may think it's a waste of time, but then they probably spend 30 hours a week watching sitcoms on TV." Shortwave Subculture What started as a fringe hobby for those exploring the frontiers of shortwave radio in solitude has become a group effort, thanks to the Internet. "It made it possible for hobbyists to rapidly exchange information with each other. Now someone can hear a station, and alert others in real-time, so they can tune it in, rather than reading about it months from now," Smolinski said. Smolinski runs an Internet mailing list called Spooks, named after the slang word for an undercover agent. The mailing list, along with Smolinski's Web site, is a clearinghouse for the observations of fellow hobbyists, who can jump online and share their observations with each other. And the subject of their observations is somewhat baffling. Every night, the shortwave spectrum of radio is peppered with mysterious, androgynous-sounding announcers who chant numbers in a monotone voice. Many times the broadcast is introduced by an eerie piece of music that identifies the particular station to those in the know. And since shortwave signals bounce off the atmosphere and the surface of the Earth, sometimes they can be heard from across the planet. Listeners first noticed the stations during the beginning of the Cold War, but didn't know what they were for. To this date, no government has admitted to the purpose of these broadcasts or even to running the stations that send them. It wasn't until the '70s that the source and purpose of the stations started becoming common knowledge. Shortwave listeners, by comparing their observations, have traced some of these signals back to their source. Most of them come from known military installations of the world's governments. The numbers stations are generally understood to be coded transmissions of instructions from the intelligence agencies of the world's governments to their undercover agents deployed in other countries. So why are spy agencies using low-tech shortwave radio to get word out to their agents? "The thought is that it is normal to have a small portable radio that tunes shortwave, so possession isn't incriminating," Smolinski said. "If the agent were caught with James Bond-type sophisticated gear, it would be pretty obvious he's a spy," he added. Smolinski estimates some numbers listeners spend over 20 hours a week practicing their hobby. Some postings to the Spooks list include logs of hundreds of different stations caught in the act by listeners. Unfortunately, listeners will never know the meanings of the mysterious messages. They're encoded using something called a one-time-pad, which is unbreakable unless you're in possession of a matching codebook to the one that was used to scramble the message. And agents are trained to destroy each page of their code book once used, hence the moniker "one-time." But for Smolinski, the hobby still has rewards. For one, tuning in the faint stations requires a little more shortwave-listening mettle than tuning in the BBC, for example. And by coordinating with fellow listeners, the Spooks list and other groups of its ilk have managed to figure out who runs many of the stations and their probable purpose. For example, Spooks members have noted increased broadcasts from stations run by the Mossad — the Israeli version of the CIA — during times when conflict flares in the Middle East. And listeners have determined that broadcasts from American stations on this continent are usually read in Spanish — and thought to be aimed at Cuba. Of course, Cuba is believed to run stations of its own. A change in the regular pattern of broadcasts will often spark a speculative thread on the Spooks list. Did equipment fail? Was it some CIA agent's first day? Was that Latin beat underneath the latest broadcast interference, or just some Cuban agent listening to the radio? Spies are a mysterious bunch. --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'